Reigning World Champion Tero Pitkämäki of Finland competes in the men's Javelin Throw qualification at the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics (© Getty Images)
Conditions played a major part in the men’s Javelin qualification. Although it was pretty windy during Group A, the weather really let Group B down with torrential rain starting during round two. The second group had their competition interrupted with the throwers removed from the field after round two with thunder and lighting above Berlin.
As usual the qualification competition was not easy for even most of the medal contenders with many of them having to use all of their three attempts. The only thrower reaching the automatic qualifying limit of 82.00m was the World leading athlete Vadims Vasilevskis of Latvia, who hit a commanding 86.69m throw in round one of Group B before the rain had started.
The biggest news after the troublesome qualification was the fact that all four Finnish throwers made it to the final and for the first time since the 1924 Olympics in Paris that Finland has four javelin throwers in the final. They went 1-2-3-4 in this event in the 1920 Olympics and did have four men in the Edmonton World champs qualification in 2001, but only reigning champion from Seville Aki Parviainen made it to the final there and captured a silver medal behind Jan Zelezny’s (CZE) competition record 92.80m.
Japanese Yukifumi Murakami was a surprise name to top the Group A with a 83.10m personal best with Guillermo Martinez of Cuba getting an automatic qualifier in round three with 82.50m in the same group having already reached the qualifying mark in round one with the narrowest of fouls.
The reigning champion Tero Pitkämäki of Finland had to use all of his three throws but still easily made it to the final with a 81.65 throw. The Finn has been ill since Thursday morning with a temperature of 38 C then, but was fit enough today to compete. German Mark Frank threw 80.85m and reigning Olympic champion Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway had same kind of trouble with Pitkämäki having to use all three throws to reach 80.37m. Thorkildsen’s throws seemed to have enough power behind them but just went too high to the sky to lose some metres there.
Another Finn Teemu Wirkkala, fifth at the Olympics last year, was seventh in the qualification with 79.84 and Olympic silver medallist from Latvia, Ainars Kovals, next with a 79.76 throw. Czech Petr Frydrych (79.57) and Tero Järvenpää of Finland (79.48) will be joined in the final by American Sean Furey, who was delighted with a 79.28 season’s best throw coming in Group B in round three after the delay and Antti Ruuskanen of Finland, first timer in major championships, who was fortunate enough to be the last qualifier with 78.69 result. Just one centimetre behind Ruuskanen with 78.68 was Sergey Makarov of Russia, 13th best in the qualification and out of the final.
Other notable non-qualifiers included Pole Igor Janik who was seventh in Osaka 2007 and another Russian Igor Korotkov, seventh at the 2007 Olympics. 2005 World champion Andrus Värnik of Estonia did not start the qualification.
Mirko Jalava for the IAAF
